The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-01-14

Barren Sand.

barren
GnIy a few years ago Florida was uni
versally called "a peninsula of barren
sand, over which swept the mosquito and
crawled the alligator" To those who
hunted the Seminole it appeared g maze
of interminable swamps." Yet her eli
mate now attracts visitors from all parts
of the world, and the influx of foreign
capital has crowned her bluffs and hills
with beautiful homes, and pushe
railroads through all her waste place
which are being rapidly filled with indus
trious and moral immigrants. Where
formerly stretched the domain of the
savage and beast, the pine and magnolia
and oak have given place to the grove
and the farm the whistle of the loco
motive has silenced the scream of the
panther, and busy commerce plies her
ceaseless round where once brOOded the
silence of desolation. From one section
alone now goes out a single crop which
returns more than a million of dollars.
So much for what has been accomplished
on barren sand up to the present time.
In another direction the same useless
field may produce a crop as yet untried,
but probably of equal value.
From Sandy Hook to Cape May Point,
the whole coast of New Jersey was valued
twenty year, ago at only seven mil
lions. Now the Comptroller's report
shows that this small stretch of barren
sand pays tares on one hnndred mil
lions. Yet the miles of the Jersey coast
may be almost duplicated in several Of
our counties, and in extent as we'll as in
beauty of scenery, abundance and vari
ETY. of productions both of land and
water, and IA freedom from disdgreeoble
insects and dangerous storms, the shores
of Florida stand far ahead of her North
ern sister. If Jersey sand may be made
so valuable, why is the same commodity
worthless in Florida? In vain may it be
pleaded that the coast of New Jersey
is valuable because of its vicinity to
hundreds of large cities time and space
are annihilated in this age and gen.
Grafton, and the merchant who now sits
at his desk during the summer months
merely because he must be on hand
in case of need" can be in hourly
communication with his business even
while his body is in Florida, and when
the delights of our summers are as well
appreciated as those of our winters, we
shall have no "dull season" of which to
complain.
Let not the stranger smile when we
assure him that a summer in Florida
may be made as pleasant as her winters.
Ten years ago he would have scorned to
expect any thing but hardship from a
winter visit. And we speak of what we
firmly believe when we say that the capa-
bilities of our beach sand" are as little
appreciated now as were those of our
"pine hills" twenty years ago. The
trouble has always been that judgment
was rendered on our State from expert
ence in other soils and very different
climates; hence the opinions expressed
were, of course, based only on utter ig-
norance. And let not those who 60 to
Jersey complain of our mosquitoes any
more than of the poverty of our soil;
let it be understood that all the snakes we
have are drawn from our TASKS, and
that from the insects we may protect
ourselves here as we do elsewhere.
Neither will it be.found, when properly
tested, that our beach ridge is necessa
rily barren. 1t has been said that the
poor man must go elsewhere, because
our lands are now too high for his purse,
At mere nominal sum he may buy
great stretches of land on the coast. and
these may be made valuable, at less cost
and risk, than the first orange growers
encountered. Fortunes may be as surely
and easily made by planting pineapples,
cocoanuts and guavas on the coast, and
these lay be as easily grown as oranges
in the interior; il the ''orange business is
overdone," as alarmists CLAIM, then
these other industries are still in the
first stages of infancy.
Ii Jersey sand has been made valua-
BILE by the investment of capital in sum-
mer resorts, we have more than one
hundred miles of coast AGAINST each
one of hers, our summers are cooler,
our beaches more beautiful, our waves
less dangerous. And we can grow val
liable crops on our beach sand, which is
still held by the State and the Federal
Government at merely nominal prices.
And the wealth of our waters may be
made. at the call of experience, to yield
abundant returns as yet undreamed of
and beyond calculation. III would-be /
investors wait till all the interior is taken !
up by those who realize the value of
Florida sand, then they can only look to /
the coast line which is. as yet, unno> /
ticed: if they fail to take hold of the |
coast with the same faith and pluck |